Bart Stupak: “Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3348 is an extremely important bipartisan piece of legislation for those citizens and communities that…”

“Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3348 is an extremely important bipartisan piece of legislation for those citizens and communities that experience difficult winters year after year. In my district, which includes the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and the northern section of the Lower Peninsula, residents endured snow for 8 consecutive months last winter. And I may add that last Friday the first snowflakes of this winter fell. In my area, in my district, we recorded a total snow accumulation of 321 inches or nearly 27 feet. If my colleagues can imagine for a moment, that level of snow would completely bury the typical two-story family home and would nearly reach the ceiling of this House Chamber. Whether the cause of the disaster is flooding, fire, hurricane, like the recent devastation in North Carolina caused by Hurricane Fran, or snow, we gauge the impact of a weather event in terms of the number of people it affects and the magnitude of its financial impact. The winter of 1995-96 was not a single storm but rather a series of recordbreaking storms. The total accumulation of record-breaking snowfalls pushed road crews and local communities to the brink of financial disaster. The financial havoc these storms wreaked on my district will be felt for years to come.”